The men's track and field team captured fourth place out of nine teams at the Springfield Invitational on Saturday, earning most of its points in sprint and field events as many of the Jumbos' top distance runners took the weekend off from racing.
Junior Brad Nakanishi and freshman Brian Williamson notched the two Tufts victories of the day. Nakanishi was the only athlete to clear a height of 14-11 and made three attempts at 16 in the pole vault to claim first place, while Williamson's throw of 48-4 1/2 in the shot put landed more than five inches ahead of the second-place effort.
"It's awesome to be taking attempts at a school record [16-0] this early in the year," Nakanishi said. "I think the school record is going to be a height I need to get to travel to nationals."
The pair of firsts helped bring the Jumbos' score toward their total of 67 points. MIT easily claimed the team title with 176 points, far ahead of runner-up host Springfield's 100. UMass Dartmouth earned third with 93 points.
"Overall, it was an average day," assistant coach Nick Welch said. "The team is working really hard, and for where we're at in the season right now, I think everything is about where I would expect. It sometimes takes a couple meets to have things really click. Even if some of the PR's and qualifying marks haven't come yet, the foundation is there for them to come in the next couple weeks for a lot of guys on the team."
Freshman PtahOsayande contributed a runner-up finish to the effort. Osayande crossed the line in 8.93 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles, edging out the third-place finisher by just two-hundredths of a second.
"After qualifying for the finals using both lead legs in the hurdles — which is pretty weird — [Osayande] had a much better race in the finals," Welch said. "Week to week, each little piece of his hurdle race is starting to come together."
Tufts also earned runner-up finishes in the last two events. The foursome of junior Lawrence Xia, senior Ben Crastnopol, sophomore Max Levitin and freshman Francis Goins combined for a time of 3:30.19 in the 4x400-meter relay to finish second to MIT's relay. The 4x800-meter relay also added a second-place finish as juniors Sam Haney and Adam Brosh and freshmen Sam Garfield and Andy Phillips recorded a time of 8:24.72.
While the rest of his team travelled to Springfield on Saturday, junior Michael Blair competed in the Harvard Multi-Meet. Blair became the first-ever Jumbo to compete in the heptathlon since the NCAA instituted the event in place of the pentathlon.
Blair's score of 4,346 points in the seven events is currently third-best among Div. III athletes nationwide. Blair earned the most points for his 60-meter hurdle effort, running a time of 9.1 seconds for 724 points. His high jump over the bar at a height of 6-0 3/4 earned him 670 points.
"Mike is now a school record holder in the heptathlon, but I'm sure if you asked him he'd say he hopes he will surpass that mark substantially by the end of the year," Welch said. "For the first heptathlon of his life, simply putting up decent marks in all seven events is an accomplishment in and of itself, and he definitely did that, but I have no doubt he will go into his next one with a little bit more familiarity in the events, and that will pay off."
In addition to the traditional pentathlon events — 60-meter hurdles, high jump, long jump, shot put and 1000-meter run — the heptathlon adds the pole vault and the 60-meter dash. Blair fared well in these additional events, earning his third highest point total in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.7 seconds, good for 650 points.
The Jumbos will look to improve on their solid early-season marks this weekend, splitting the squad between the Terrier Classic at Boston University and the Bowdoin Invitational.
